


Madness passed me by, she smiled hi

by eatsshootsleaves



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatsshootsleaves/pseuds/eatsshootsleaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s taken to doing her course reading this way. She climbed onto your bed three weeks ago, sat back against the wall, and pulled your legs across her lap all while ignoring your pointed stare.<br/>(You can’t really say you’re upset that the invasion of your space became a habit when she regularly gets bored and starts fiddling with a rip in your jeans and suddenly neither of you gets much reading done.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madness passed me by, she smiled hi

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t written fiction in ages and I’ve never written anything in second person, so this was a pretty tough/fun exercise. Hope it’s alright!  
> All errors are my own. (Contrary to my name, I’m pretty shit with grammar.)  
> Title comes from Inner City Blues by Rodriguez
> 
>    
> —Je voulus cent fois me tuer, mais j'aimais encore la vie. Cette faiblesse ridicule est peut−être un de nos penchants les plus funestes; car y a t−il rien de plus sot que de vouloir porter continuellement un fardeau qu'on veut toujours jeter par terre? d'avoir son être en horreur, et de tenir à son être? enfin de caresser le serpent qui nous dévore, jusqu'à ce qu'il nous ait mangé le coeur?  
> Candide - Voltaire

She rarely asks about your past which is vaguely surprising considering she inquires about virtually everything else in your life.  
(Or death you suppose.)

You had anticipated her endless resolve to learn everything about you from the moment she gently drew out ‘your side of the story’ in front of a wall of sock puppets.

The tenacity that was so grating during the first days you knew each other gradually became enduring and then extraordinary. She didn’t shy away from your monstrous elements, instead jotted them down and then demanded you be better.

So, no, her eagerness didn’t surprise you, but her tact about your past did.  
And not much surprises you these days.

A large part of you wonders why she doesn’t ask. You’ve lived 334 years (122,000 sun rises when you’re feeling hyperbolic) through the birth and death of several empires, the desolation of war, and the frenzy of renaissance. It’s all a budding author’s dream.

On your darker days you think she avoids the topic because she fears she’s incapable of handling your truths. That maybe the grand story is romantic, but the particulars are terrifying.

But in your quieter moments together (which are woefully far between in this interminable hellmouth of a University) you get the feeling that she simply knows.  
Knows that you can’t look back for too long or too closely.  
Knows that you can joke about casually learning cuneiform languages and dying brutally, but can’t repeat the name of a girl you once loved.  
(It confounds you that this 19 year old girl can continue to surprise you with her insight.)

Though she avoids the past, she still has infinite questions that permeate your day at the most random moments and make you smile when she catches you unaware.  
(Why does your hair keep growing if you’re supposed to be… you know, undead? And why is it so shiny!)

But this time you can feel the question coming on long before she asks it. It’s been at least two hours since her last question and it’s been shockingly quiet in your tiny room.  
(Perhaps that has to do with the sign you recently hung on your door – a rather graphic cartoon of a stick-figure with fangs beheading several orange-haired stick figures.)  
She sets her head back against the wall with a light thud and the sound makes you raise your eyes from your 23rd rereading of Huis-Clos.

You raise an eyebrow in her general direction and she sets her Ethics in Journalism book down over your knees. She’s taken to doing her course reading this way. She climbed onto your bed three weeks ago, sat back against the wall, and pulled your legs across her lap all while ignoring your pointed stare.  
(You can’t really say you’re upset that the invasion of your space became a habit when she regularly gets bored and starts fiddling with a rip in your jeans and suddenly neither of you gets much reading done.)

But today she pinches her eyes closed for a moment while the back of her head rests against the wall rolling steadily to the side. She is so startlingly beautiful sometimes it steals your breath away against your will.  
(Another thing, like feeling surprised, that you never expected to experience again.)

You’re wrapped up in this self-indulgent thought and her beauty when she opens her eyes and fixes you with a stare that is hunting for something but you don’t have the slightest idea what. It’s unnerving since you’re pretty used to being the know-it-all.

“What is it cupcake? You’re thinking pretty hard and it looks like you might hurt yourself.”

She tosses her journalism book at you, which you catch easily despite being only a couple feet away. Vampire reflexes and all. So she flips you off with a smile that makes you want to leap over and kiss her as fast as you grabbed her book out of the air.

“Why philosophy?”

“What?” How does she keep managing to catch you off guard like this? You’ve lived for three centuries.

“Why do you study philosophy? Or well, pretend to study it? I feel like its 98% of what I see you reading. And I know you won’t give me a list of your favorite books because its ‘reductive,’ but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you reading that depressing French play at least three times. So… why philosophy?”

“Maybe I just like to seem cultured.”

“And broody?”

“I prefer saturnine.”

“Oooookay SAT word of the day. You’re really trying to tell me you read this stuff to impress other people. Cause I guess it is pretty badass that you know all this stuff and its pretty sexy that you can read it all in the original languages, but it seems like there’s more to it is all…”

There’s a bit of pink at the edge of her cheeks at her slip of words and it makes you want to kiss her even more, but her question is distracting because she’s right, it is more. She’s gently prodding at little bits of yourself and a past you’re not sure you’re ready to address yet.

“Philosophy is the study of existence, of the nature of knowledge, of all the problems on earth and what comprises them. It’s the highest form of thinking. What else would I study?” Though your answer is honest, you don’t meet her eye when you deliver it.

When you do look up, she’s fixed you with a look that you once again can’t decipher. She’s either disappointed in your response, or embarrassed that she asked anything in the first place. Probably both. Either way you immediately want to fix your mistake, but suddenly find yourself at a loss for words.  
(Another thing you never expected to experience again, being at a loss for words. Its strike three along with surprising you and taking your breath away. This girl would surely kill you if you weren’t already… you know.)

By the time you get your bearings she’s back to reading her journalism textbook, but she’s grabbed your hand and is fiddling with one of your rings absentmindedly. You can see a frown around the edges of her lips, and you know the topic has only been temporarily benched.  
(You give her to the end of the page before you finally do reach over and kiss her.)

\---

From then on she asks you to read to her, little bits from whatever you’re reading at the time. It doesn’t matter that she won’t understand any of it, since you do typically read things in their original language, she insists. As if you’d ever have the strength to deny such a request.

Tonight it’s Voltaire, because his biting satire still makes you giggle even after a couple centuries. It doesn’t hurt that she clearly prefers the French “authors.”  
(You’re pretty happy now that Mother forced you into hours of practicing your high Parisian accent over the decades.)

You think she drifts off somewhere around Candide’s very morbid reunion with Cunegonde in Lisbon. Her breath drifts lightly across your chest with her head buried half into your shoulder and half into the yellow pillow you’re lying on.

It’s been a long time since something you’ve read has seemed so irrelevant. These books you’ve paged through a thousand times have always allowed you to detach from the world around you; to disappear into a thousand different ways of thinking. But the misfortunes of poor Candide seem so distant when contrasted with the feeling of Laura’s hair running through your fingers. You’re supposed to be a terrifying ancient monster and she’s dozed off looking utterly at peace half on top of you with a finger threaded through your belt loop. 

You try to stifle your laugh at how absurd it all seems and fail. Laura huffs out a breath reluctantly waking up from her brief nap. She opens one eye and scrunches up her face in what you imagine is supposed to be a grumpy glare. It isn’t even close. When she turns her head up you promptly kiss her in apology and feel more than see the grumpiness fade off her face.

She buries her nose back into your neck without ever opening the other eye and lets out another huffy breath. It sends a shiver down your spine, but she’s still half asleep.

“I thought this was another depressing French book, why are you laughing?”  
She suddenly shoots up from your shoulder almost knocking the book out of your hands.

“Oh crap! Did I drool on you again! You promised me you’d wake me up before I did next time.”

“Relax cutie, no drool, I keep my promises. The book is a larger piece of satire. It’s supposed to be funny.”

She gives your shoulder a suspicious glance before settling her head back down on it and you try to ignore how that makes your stomach drop to around your ankles. You go back to reading aloud and making absentminded patterns with your fingers against her shoulder. She doesn’t go back to sleep and you swear you can almost feel her thinking.

“You told me one time that ethics are a ridiculous set of rules people assign themselves to impose order on an arbitrary universe. Do you really believe that?”

“That’s a pretty hefty question for philosophy 101… And how do you manage to remember all the most obscure things I say..?”

She props herself up on one hand so she can be eye to eye with you and makes it clear that she wants a real answer. She’s prying open your past and encouraging you to dissect it. The insane part is that in this tiny room bundled up and wrapped around each other you feel safe enough to actually try.

“Sometimes, yes. I’ve seen the absolute worst parts of the world. Genocides and atomic bombs. Families turned against each other for the sake of religion or some other equally banal dogma. The things that humans are capable of doing to each other is truly despicable. And the utter lack of consideration for the value of life is devastating. So do ethics, and laws, and morality seem pointless to me? Yes, almost all of the time. Almost.”

You look at her after pointedly avoiding her eyes during your little speech. You expect to find heartbreak or pity at your outburst about the horrors of man. Instead you find fire. She’s challenging you, pressing you forward. 

“You asked me once why I study philosophy and I think you know I wasn’t completely honest with my answer.” Laura doesn’t move and gives you the space to continue. “Despite living in this arbitrary, chaotic, and generally horrible world, I can’t stop looking for the humanity in people. Looking for bits of good hiding behind the demons that lurk around the earth and for logic to explain the terrible things I’ve seen. 

“Well, have you found any logic, or answers, or…” Her response is barely a whisper but it resonates in your little shared room.

“Not really. But I think as soon as I stop looking it’ll be the end for me. Maybe I actually die. Or maybe I turn into the monster everyone thinks I’m supposed to be. Lately though, I think I might be getting closer to finding some slivers of answers.”

“You mean because your evil wench of a mother is finally gone.” That fire in her eyes is stronger and you laugh because of course that would be her logic.

“No Laura, because I met you. I know you’ll never believe it just because I say it, but eventually you’ll see what an enormous gift you are to this doomed world.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just enough time to make you start to panic. Then she leans in and grabs at the back of your head and kisses you hard. It takes your breath away, but lately you’ve stopped counting how often she does that to you.

When she pulls back you can tell she’s searching for words, can see her brain turning over everything you’ve said. 

“I don’t have anything that could even count as a response to that, so you suck for being a super classy, super smart vampire, but I love you too Carm.”

(This time she stole your breath and took your words, and you swear, though it makes no sense, made your heart skip a beat as well.)

Hours later she’s drawing patterns with her hands on the bare skin of your back. Clothes didn’t stand a chance in the face of confessions like that. You’re dozing off as the sun is rising. It was a night of a lot of firsts and you can’t believe this tiny 19 year old can break you down so easily.

You jolt awake with the realization that you never said it back to her and the words are out of your mouth before you can stop yourself. “I love you too Laura, in a way I never thought would be possible for me.”

“I know.” She slides down onto the pillow so you’re eye to eye and throws an arm over your back. “I’m glad you kept looking.”

You close your eyes ready to sleep and she kisses your forehead. “You know the world isn’t all bad. We got music right… And cookies… We got them right too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Translation of the French at the top:
> 
> —A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but always I loved life more. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts; is anything more stupid than choosing to carry a burden that really one wants to cast on the ground? to hold existence in horror, and yet to cling to it? to fondle the serpent which devours us till it has eaten out our heart?  
> Candide - Voltaire


End file.
